


Divine Intervention

by Gloomier



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 14:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17163521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloomier/pseuds/Gloomier
Summary: There are many things in the universe that mortal beings will never understand. One of those things being the Valar and how they affect the world and the mortals that live on it. The battle is not going well, and the line of Durin seems fated to die. Bilbo Baggins can’t decide whether he’s gone ‘round the bend or not when a higher power decides to intervene.





	Divine Intervention

Somewhere deep in his heart, Bilbo knew that the quest would end in tears. The moment Thorin and the rest of the company finally and truly accepted him. With every joke and smack on the shoulders, his gut churned.

When the orcs came pouring out of the worm-made tunnels like black sludge, their putridness covering the desolation, Bilbo wanted to throw up. Even as he knelt at Thorin’s side as the dwarf took his last breaths. He wished for the ground to swallow him up.

Bilbo was not taught in the ways of healing, he could barely patch up a scratch let alone the gaping and gushing wound left in Azog’s wake. All Bilbo could do was whimper uselessly and hold the dwarf’s hand tightly as Thorin bled to death. And still, he thought to use his remaining breath to forgive his ill words and deeds.

“I would have us part as friends,” Thorin gasped, gripping Bilbo’s hand a little tighter.

Bilbo’s words caught in his throat as he tried to stave off the overwhelming reaction to sob. “I-I would not have us part at all.”

Thorin smiled at him, a true smile that lit up his entire face. Bilbo cried. And as the light faded from Thorin’s eyes, Bilbo, in his misery and grief, grew angry.

He didn’t know where to look to address those he could not see, but he shouted his words nonetheless.

It wasn’t fair. It was not Thorin’s fault that the dragon had come. Or for any of the hardships that weighed his shoulders down. Thorin was trying to do right by his people, and make up for mistakes that were not his. Thorin Oakenshield did not deserve the hand that he was dealt. His nephews did not deserve it either. Dwarves deserved better than what they have had to go through.

He screamed his malcontent into the grey-clouded sky until his voice was hoarse. And when he was done he silently cried for the loss of what could have been. He had loved Thorin Oakenshield, and the cruelty of the Valar saw it snatched away.

Bilbo hadn’t the strength to leave Thorin’s side, even as the battle raged around him. If he was struck down while he mourned, then so be it. He only had eyes for Thorin.

“Do you love him?”

Bilbo expected a sword to run him through or an unintelligible warcry. Instead, he had heard nothing; no crunch of snow or shifting rubble.

“What?” Bilbo asked breathlessly. There was a shift to his right, a flutter of brown in the corner of his eye. Bilbo turned his head in the direction of the movement.

A broad figure stood on the ice, covered in a brown cloak with their face obscured by the hood pulled over their head. Bilbo assumed it was a dwarf by their height—they were as tall as Dwalin was. Maybe taller.

“I was not aware that hobbits had such poor hearing.” The deep, rumbling voice replied with a touch of irritation this time. “I asked if you love Thorin.”

Hobbits were not overly disagreeable people by nature (although there were always exceptions), but Bilbo’s patience and goodwill were threadbare these days. What a callous question to ask while Thorin’s body lay cooling before him. He did not need salt rubbed in his wound!

“If I did, what does it even matter to you?” Bilbo snarled angrily.

“Do you love him?!” The figure thundered suddenly and seemed to get bigger for a moment.

It reminded him of the time in Bag End when Gandalf used his magic in Bilbo’s dining room to make himself look bigger while he yelled at Thorin. The two events were not similar, for the figure’s words echoed with fire and power—this was not one of Gandalf’s tricks. The heat threatened to burn him, but did not; the dwarf’s words shook Bilbo to his core. Down below the fighting did not cease.

“Yes. I love him,” Bilbo answered.

The figure was silent; Bilbo felt like he was being intensely scrutinized. After what seemed like an eternity sitting there as the snow melted beneath him, the figure walked toward him. Bilbo was torn between running away and staying with Thorin’s body, but he found that he could not summon the will to move.

“If your heart is true, then there is a way to save him. The time to act is now, do you understand?” The figure told him, as they knelt down next to Thorin, opposite of Bilbo. “If you are at all unsure about saving Thorin, then you will die.”

Bilbo swallowed thickly, his heart threatened to burst out of his chest. He was so confused by everything, but the one thing he was certain of was his love for Thorin Bloody Oakenshield. “I meant what I said.”

The figure huffed an amused laugh, “Good.” Then the cloak that had draped over the figure parted. Previously unseen arms—banded in thick muscles, and completely covered in indecipherable markings in many colored inks—reached up and first pulled the hood down, then reached over Thorin’s body and grabbed Bilbo’s arms in their big hands.

The cloaked person was most certainly a dwarf. Bilbo’s guess had been spot on. Their dark beard once hidden now fell in a waterfall of beads, flowers, and braids down their chest to the ground. Bilbo could not comprehend whatever had kept it hidden. He was certainly surprised to see flowers in dwarvish hair.

“My lady wife’s doing,” the dwarf chuckled softly, easily reading Bilbo’s surprised expression.

The dwarf looked both young and old. The crows feet at the corners of their eyes and laugh lines spoke of age, but there wasn’t a single silver hair in beard or hair.

“Are you a wizard?” Bilbo asked in his bafflement.

“I am not, but that is not important. We have a life to save.” The dwarf said determinedly.

The unnamed dwarf tugged Bilbo’s arms and hands where they wished, placing one hand over the other to rest on the middle of Thorin’s unmoving chest. When it was done, they released Bilbo and sat back on their haunches.

“Whatever happens, do not move your hands from Thorin’s chest. You will feel uncomfortable at first, but I promise that you will be fine. If you feel hesitation at all, then what I am going to do will kill you, and both of you will cease to exist, in this world and the next.” The dwarf explained gravely. There was no jest shining in their eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Bilbo replied, his face pinching in confusion. The dwarf didn’t answer and instead rose to their feet.

There was a sudden burst of bright light, and Bilbo’s eyes closed on instinct. His eyelids did nothing to block it out. He nearly reached up to cover them, but the words the dwarf had spoken echoed in his mind.

When the explosion of light dimmed, Bilbo slowly opened his eyes again. The light was still exceedingly bright, as though the sun had been tethered to the ground. The air around him had grown warm, the chill of the wind no longer bit at him. The unnamed dwarf was nowhere to be seen, and in his stead was a bright pillar of light. Then Bilbo was moving.

Bilbo yelped wordlessly, jerking in surprise. Both he and Thorin’s body were floating upwards as if they had weighed nothing. They kept rising and Bilbo was close to fainting, but he stubbornly kept his hands on Thorin’s chest. The both of them were a good distance up when they stopped, and golden light appeared beneath them too. So distracted as he was by the height, Bilbo did not see that the pillar of light had shape until it bent down to closely inspect him.

“You are doing well, but we are not done yet. Get ready.” The voice of the unnamed dwarf rumbled. Bilbo could not find the words to explain what he was seeing.

The dwarf bathed in golden light had a hammer in their right hand and tongs in the left. Pinched between the metal fingers of the tongs, was a white-hot ingot. They brought the ingot to rest over Thorin’s body and Bilbo’s hands. The heat from the object was almost unbearable, he felt like he was going to turn to dust, but Bilbo endured. The hammer came next.

The dwarf’s voice was loud again and it rolled like thunder over the land. It brought the war in the valley below to a grinding halt. As the dwarf chanted in their own tongue, they brought the hammer down upon Bilbo and Thorin, the noise of the strikes resonating with their words. The force of the hammer never physically touched them, but the ingot seemed to take shape. It looked an awful lot like dwarf. As the hammering continued the ingot began to cool and disappear.

When the hammering and chanting ceased, there was silence. Even Bilbo held his breath in anticipation as he watched Thorin closely. The heat of the ingot was gone, but it left Thorin’s skin pink with warmth. Then Thorin took a breath, and then another. His chest steadily rose and fell.

Bilbo let his breath go then too, it left his lungs in a whoosh of relief with a shower of tears in its wake. He buried himself into Thorin’s chest, fisting the dwarf’s clothes and chainmail in his hands, and sobbed. The light beneath Bilbo and Thorin’s body faded away, and they were gently placed back on the ground.

Everything was forgotten and ignored completely. There were only the two arms that enveloped Bilbo, squishing him further into Thorin.

While Bilbo chanted his own words of thanks to the unnamed dwarf over and over, Thorin’s eyes fluttered open.

All those present in the valley during the battle told tales of the golden figure that had appeared and delivered them from the maw of darkness that fateful day.

The dwarves tell the tale that it had been Mahal, their maker, who had worked his craft to bring Thorin Oakenshield back to life. And that he had taken pity on them all after the reforging, turning his divine wrath to the orcs and cleansing their filth with fire, purging it from the land.

Bilbo Baggins had very little to say on the matter other than that he was very lucky indeed.

And if Bilbo lived much longer than the average hobbit was supposed to, Thorin never minded.


End file.
